Italian broadband tops 15.2m
October 28, 2016
From Branislav Pekic in Rome
Italy surpassed 15.2 million fixed broadband accesses at the end of the first half of 2016, up by 582,000 on an annual basis, according to the Communications Observatory of Italy’s Communications Authority (AgCom).
There was a significant reduction in ADSL accesses (-400,000) to 12.5 million, offset by the growth of other access technologies (+980,000) that now exceed 2.6 million.
Telecom Italia had a market share of 46.6 per cent (-1 per cent), followed by Wind with 15.4 per cent (no change), Fastweb with 14.9 per cent (+0.1 per cent), Vodafone Italia with 13.3 per cent (+0.6 per cent), Tiscali with 3.6 per cent (-0.4 per cent) and other Fixed Wireless Access operators with 6.4 per cent (+0.7 per cent).
The number of broadband accesses with speeds above 10 Mbps reached 5.9 million, accounting for 39 per cent of the total (28.7 per cent in June 2015). There were 1.7 million accesses above 30 Mbps, equal to 11.5 per cent (5.7 per cent in 2015). Telecom Italia, Fastweb and Vodafone Italia were responsible for 95 per cent of high speed broadband accesses in Italy.
At the end of June, there were 1.9 million Next Generation Network (NGN) broadband lines (+870,000 year-on-year), with both Telecom Italia (+415,000) and Vodafone Italia (+280,000) contributing to the growth.
In regards to the TV market, RAI and Mediaset continue as leaders in TV audience share with 36.8 per cent and 29.1 per cent, respectively, although below 2012 levels.
Sky Italia continued its growth trend since 2012, reaching a 7.8 per cent share, despite a 4 per cent increase in overall pay-TV prices in Italy compared to June 2015.
After growth in the period 2012-2015 as a result of M&A operations, Discovery Italia’s share was stable at 6.8 per cent.
Smaller broadcasters had a 14.4 per cent audience share, along levels from previous years.